Is Social Media Harming Confidence?

Social media has so many benefits and creates so many opportunities for us nowadays, such as allowing us to connect with new people on the other side of the world and allowing us to start businesses where we can reach a whole new world of clients.

However, as with everything, there are always two sides, and the negative side of social media is having some pretty bad effects on people - one of those being a lack of confidence.

Confidence is a funny thing because it seems that we’re born with it - as babies and children we do things we’d never do as an adult, but then as we grow up we have people telling us that these things aren’t appropriate and that’s something we start to internalize and take to mean that we’re not appropriate.

This is certainly not the intention when people tell us these things, but it’s simply conditioning that gets passed down through the generations.

-->

As we grow up, we have many experiences that can either boost or break our confidence and since the rise of social media, the breaking is becoming more common - yet it certainly doesn’t appear that way.

Have you ever found yourself looking on somewhere like Instagram at all those seemingly happy people sharing pictures of their latest tropical trip and wondering why they seem to have such a perfect life?

Of course, you have - that’s the whole point of Instagram really - to filterlife.

However, you’d probably be surprised to know that the vast majority of those people posting those pics are probably some of the most unhappy, depressed and anxious people on the planet. Of course, not all of them are, but they’re posting only the good side of their lives and then they’re filtering and editing their photos to show only the best side of them which makes them feel like they’re having their confidence boosted because they’ll no doubt attract a hoard of likes and favorable comments telling them how beautiful and wonderful they are.

On the flip side, studies have shown that simple things like deactivating social media or even just removing the apps from your phone can have a significant positive effect for people who deal with low confidence, low self esteem and even anxiety, because once you get back to the real world and actually understand that you don’t need to be comparing yourself with anyone and that you are enough as you are - as well as realizing that nobody is perfect and filtered all the time, then confidence and mood tends to increase quite dramatically.

We’re certainly
not saying that you shouldn’t take steps to boost your confidence in ways that
others may not agree with. For example, if you’re unhappy with your smile and
want to get dental treatment to improve this or you really feel like getting
surgery from Dr. Steven Warnock
breast augmentation could really improve your confidence, then don’t
be afraid to make those decisions because only you know what you need